Delta of Venus - Anais Nin [15]
The Ring
In Peru it is the custom among the Indians to exchange rings for a betrothal, rings that have been in their possession for a long time. These rings are sometimes in the shape of a chain.
A very handsome Indian fell in love with a Peruvian woman of Spanish descent, but there was violent opposition on the part of her family. The Indians were purported to be lazy and degenerate, and to produce weak and unstable children, particularly when married to Spanish blood.
In spite of the opposition, the young people carried out their engagement ceremony among their friends. The girl’s father came in during the festivities and threatened that, if he ever met the Indian wearing the chain ring the girl had already given him, he would tear it from his finger in the bloodiest manner, and if necessary cut his finger off. The festivities were spoiled by this incident. Everybody went home, and the young people separated with promises to meet secretly.
They met one evening after many difficulties, and kissed fervently for a long while. The woman was exalted by his kisses. She was ready to give herself, feeling that this might be their last moment together, for her father’s anger was growing every day. But the Indian was determined to marry her, determined not to possess her in secrecy. Then she noticed that he did not have the ring on his finger. Her eyes questioned him. He said in her ear, ‘I am wearing it, but not where it can be seen. I am wearing it where no one can see it, but where it will prevent me from taking you or any other woman until we are married.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said the woman. ‘Where is the ring?’
Then he took her hand, led it to a certain place between the legs. The woman’s fingers felt his penis first of all, and then he guided her fingers and she felt the ring there at the base of it. At the touch of her hand, however, the penis hardened and he cried out, because the ring pressed into it and gave him excruciating pain.
The woman almost fainted with horror. It was as if he wanted to kill and mutilate the desire in himself. And at the same time the thought of this penis bound and encircled by her ring roused her sexually, so that her body became warm and sensitive to all kinds of erotic fantasies. She continued to kiss him, and he begged her not to, because it brought him greater and greater pain.
A few days later the Indian was again in agony, but he could not get the ring off. The doctor had to be called, and the ring filed away.
The woman came to him and offered to run away with him. He accepted. They got on horses and traveled for a whole night together to a nearby town. There he concealed her in a room and went out to get work on an hacienda. She did not leave the room until her father tired of searching for her. The night watchman of the town was the only one aware of her presence. The watchman was a young man and had helped to conceal her. From her window she could see him walking back and forth carrying the keys of the houses, and calling, ‘The night is clear and all is well in the town.’
When someone came home late he would clap his hands together and call for the watchman. The watchman would open the door. While the Indian was away at work the watchman and the woman chatted together innocently.
He told her about a crime that had recently taken place in the village. The Indians who left the mountain and their work on the haciendas and went down to the jungle became wild and beastlike. Their faces changed from lean, noble contours to bestial grossness.
Such a transformation had just taken place in an Indian who had once been the handsomest man of the village, gracious, silent, with a strange humor and a reserved sensuality. He had gone down to the jungle and made money hunting. Now he had returned. He was homesick. He came back